Well they opened it up to 10 films after the fact that they snubbed a lot of good films back in 2008 (Wall-E, Dark Knight, Gran Torino, and more) and there was a lot of protest as such. I think it is good they did this. Allows a nice and more wide range of films to be nominated, as such, hooray for Up!

I like the list, but I have personally never heard of Precious, An Education, or A Serious Man and I am a little sad that Where the Wild Things Are or Ponyo didn't get a nomination, but still.

Finally! An animated movie gets nominated again for Best Picture that deserves it. Personally Wall-E was much better than Up, but that is a personal opinion. However, Up isn't going to win and never is Avatar. I'm betting a karma point it is either A Serious Man (I looked it up), Up in the Air, or Inglorious Bastards.

Well they opened it up to 10 films after the fact that they snubbed a lot of good films back in 2008 (Wall-E, Dark Knight, Gran Torino, and more) and there was a lot of protest as such. I think it is good they did this. Allows a nice and more wide range of films to be nominated, as such, hooray for Up!

I like the list, but I have personally never heard of Precious, An Education, or A Serious Man and I am a little sad that Where the Wild Things Are or Ponyo didn't get a nomination, but still.

Finally! An animated movie gets nominated again for Best Picture that deserves it. Personally Wall-E was much better than Up, but that is a personal opinion. However, Up isn't going to win and never is Avatar. I'm betting a karma point it is either A Serious Man (I looked it up), Up in the Air, or Inglorious Bastards.

Surprised you hadn't heard of A Serious Man. Cohen brothers flick, I remember seeing the trailer on a couple films I saw theatrically in '09. I don't think it has any real chance of winning, though. I'd say Avatar is the most likely (much like Titanic and Return of the King taking it, the mass box office appeal and scope of the film, coupled with it still being in theatres during voting and all the other nominations - good chance), followed by Up In The Air then the Hurt Locker. Basterds is the dark horse candidate - it might surprise for the same reason Avatar has a chance. I doubt it though.

Thing is, ten Best Picture nominations gives Avatar a much bigger chance of winning. People who like uplifting and highly entertaining films (and the films message) will gravitate to it much more than The Hurt Locker or Up In the Air, and the "art house" and more "serious" minded people will have their votes divided between all the other nominations. It's kind of like how you don't ever want to be nominated twice in the same category - it'll divide up the votes, and give it to what otherwise would have had no chance. As has happened to Actors in the past, and has happened to John Williams a couple times for Best Score.

For that reason, I don't think increasing the number to 10 was a good idea. The Oscar ratings being so low is probably the major reason.

"Clive [Barker]'s idea of a great time is to have a nightmare about a woman with three heads and no skin who flays your body with a pitchfork. To give you some idea, NIGHTBREED has over 200 pus monsters, including one guy with a crescent moonhead like the McDonald's commercial and a fat guy with snakes that pop out of his stomach and eat your face off, and these are the GOOD GUYS. These are the people we're supposed to LIKE."-Joe Bob on NIGHTBREED

But I'm also halfway cheering Avatar, halfway cheering Basterds. If the former wins, sci-fi may get some recognition again; if the latter wins, it wins in heavy contrast to all the other tearjerker WWII films to get the Oscar XD

I'm betting a karma point it is either A Serious Man (I looked it up), Up in the Air, or Inglorious Bastards.

Interesting bet! especially since The Hurt Locker and Avatar seem to be the favourites for this. But ya know, I'm not brave enough to bet against you at the moment being that I currently have no karma points so a bad bet would send me in to minuses! - oh what the heck I'm willing to bet it wont be one of the ones you've listed.

Frankly, I'm not happy with the Academy of expanding the list of Best Picture from five entries to 10 entries, but it is not a new idea. From 1931/32 to 1943 more then five films were nominated for Best Picture. It was only in 1944 to last year were the nominations for Best Picture restricted to five films.